


Canaries in a Coalmine

by beer_good



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Amnesia, Apocalypse, Gen, Memory Loss, Post-Series, Road Trips, Spook Me Multi-Fandom Halloween Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 08:24:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5085409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beer_good/pseuds/beer_good
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They probably expected the apocalypse to look a lot different. "Probably" since, well, nobody's quite sure if they can trust their memories now that there seems to be worldwide amnesia pandemic. Trying to keep their heads cool while everyone around is losing theirs, Dawn and Faith take some of the last Slayers on a roadtrip trying to find a cure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Canaries in a Coalmine

**Title:** Canaries in a Coalmine  
**Author:** Beer Good   
**Fandom:** _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ , post-series  
**Rating:** PG13  
**Word count:** ~1900  
**Characters/Pairing:** Dawn, Faith  
**Author's Note:** Written for **spook_me** and the prompt "Disease"  
**Summary:** The first symptoms of widespread amnesia mostly went unnoticed even by those not affected. No one's quite sure at what point it became a global pandemic, or how it spreads. But anything is better than nothing, Dawn thinks as they travel towards the last hope for a cure.

**Canaries in a Coalmine**

  
  
Nicknames were among the first things to go, which had to be painful for Faith. Dawn remembers when Faith had a ton for everyone, a defense mechanism as good as any. She wouldn't mind a "Sunrise" or a "Brat" or even a "Pipsqueak" these days ("Buffy junior" not so much) but they can't have nice things these days. Have to make sure everyone knows who everyone is, even if it means poking the occasional sore spot. No "Hey, you," no "How's everyone doing," no "nevermind", be specific. Be-be specific. (She flunked out of cheerleading tryouts, would never even have tried if not for a love spell cast by a guy named RJ, never knew what those initials meant, never replaced Buffy's uniform after she cut it up.)

The Land Rover thumps its way along the dirt road, and Dawn bounces up and down on her seat as she pulls out her notebook again. She's tried to write everything down by hand, it feels more permanent somehow, but something keeps holding her back. Like it's admitting defeat. Anything they can't remember on their own these days feels like cheating, and who would be reading it anyway?  
  
_Report on the ~~Superalzhei~~ ~~Amnesia+~~ ~~Forgetfulness syndr~~ Nothing_

They can't even come up with a good name for it. Or rather, they can't stand the only name that fits it. "Nothing", the fog that rises up out of nowhere and erases the people it afflicts, memory by memory.

_Here's what we know: About six months ag_

"What we know". It's weird how the world can change in only a few months. They'd cleared up the mess in LA, they were building the new Slayers' Council, they were setting up cells all over the world, and then…

_The first symptoms of widespread amnesia mostly went unnoticed even by those not affected, since_

She tears the page out and crumples it up. She's spent so much time trying to pinpoint where it started that she's not even sure of what it is she's not sure of, what's memories and what's just things they've repeated enough times. Memories aren't supposed to be perfect, she keeps thinking. People forget stuff every day. How do you know when you start forgetting things for real? Buffy was always absent-minded, was Dawn supposed to notice when the whatchamacallems got more frequent? If they'd noticed earlier, could they have done anything differently, could they have -

No. She remembers all that, but she doesn't _want_ to, damnit. She breaks out her computer and starts going over the reports again. They've been sending out Slayers to follow every lead, pull every demonic thread all over the world for months, and most of them have come up with… uh, zilch. One by one, they've stopped responding. Not all of them, but enough that it's starting to look like statistics.

She reads one report and gets her phone out.

 _"Yo."_ The reception is bad, even though Faith is just two cars behind her.

"Hey, Faith. I'm reading your report from three weeks ago. What's a cac?"  
  
_"If you don't know by now, I really can't help you."_  
  
"I know what a _cache_ of weapons is, but…"  
  
Faith laughs. _"Jesus. The world's ending, who gives a shit? You got me, I can't spell. Never could,"_ she adds quickly.  
  
"I - " Dawn hesitates, enough for Faith to know she needs to continue.  
  
_"Because I dropped out in 8th grade. My last English teacher was Mrs… Cochran or Corcoran or something. Had a thing about chewing gum in class. Caught me and Kenny in the broom closet and called my mom."_ Faith recites it like homework, which is good. Knowing what you know and what you don't gets more precious every day.  
  
Dawn glances out the rear window at the cars behind her. She can remember the names of the dozen Slayers with her, a few personal details, their strengths and weaknesses, that's about it. That's not the Nothing (though how would she know if it was?), just ordinary defense mechanisms. You don't want to know too much about people you're leading into battle.

Faith breaks the silence. _"I talked to Xander earlier."_ Satellite phones cost a fortune, but they haven't gotten a bill in weeks. Someone at the phone company isn't doing their job anymore. _"Noth… He hasn't heard anything from Willow either. Guess it's up to us."_

"Okay." She hadn't expected anything else. She doesn't ask about Buffy, if by some miracle there'd been a change that would have been the first thing out of Faith's mouth.

In the front seat, Leila checks her gun again, making sure it's loaded for the fifth (sixth?) time since they set out this morning. When the Nothing went global, well... people react badly when they don't know who they are. Seven billion people, and every day more and more of them wake up knowing less about themselves than they did the day before. It starts with the little stuff - a phone number, the book you read just last week, laughed off with "I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on!" A few weeks later, the whole person is gone. In the meantime, all those terrified people still have access to fists, cars, guns, army commands, launch codes…

This should have been their turf, there was obviously something mystical going on here. It wouldn't spread the way it does otherwise, catching through e-mail, phones... Memories aren't physical, biological enough to be susceptible to bacteria or viruses without leaving some sign that would show up on MRI or in autopsies. But without anything to punch, no heads to cut off, what can a Slayer do? They still tried, of course. Buffy kept going long after that first morning she woke up unable to remember her name. Dawn has recorded lots of similar cases, from aphasic Slayers taking down vampires to airline pilots landing a plane while frantically trying not to cry because they can't remember where they took off from. Of course, not everyone is as lucky, hence the Land Rovers.  
  
Yesterday morning, Vi refused to drive anymore. "Don't worry, I can still fight. Just… Just get me there."

 _"First time you stole?"_ The memory game was Faith's idea, as far as Dawn can remember. They've been doing it for a while, going over the same things from different angles, cementing them. She's not sure it's healthy, but they need it like you need canaries in coal mines. It won't do to bottle things up.  
  
"When I was 12. You taught me."  
  
_"Did I?"_  
  
She hears the grin in Faith's voice and has to smile. "No. Yes. I mean, I didn't exist. But yeah, you did. Lipstick. Red. I didn't have the guts to wear it and threw it away."

Faith laughs on the other end. _"Sorry."_ She's not sorry.

"What did you have for dinner yesterday?"

There's a brief pause. _"C'mon, Dawnie, what kind of chickenshit question is that?"_ Faith always wants the big questions, the who'd-you-kill, who'd-you-fuck, almost as if she likes the idea of entrusting her past to someone whose memories are all fake. _"I have no idea. All these field rations taste the same to me. I'd kill for a burger, y'know?"_ Probably normal. The food is crap, and people forget stuff that doesn't matter all the time. Still…

 _"Maybe we just got lazy,"_ Faith says a few minutes later.

"What do you mean? We who?"

 _"All of us. I dunno. Probably stupid."_ But she knows the rules. Don't trail off, don't say A if you're not sure how to say B. _"I mean… OK, the whole Slayer gig used to suck, right? One girl in all the world destined to fight monsters until she kicked it at 18. Bum deal, but at least you knew it was, knew what you were up against. But then when there's thousands of us and we should have won, only we obviously didn't… What are we supposed to fight? Why not just forget it all?"_

"It's not just Slayers getting it."

 _"I know. I said it was stupid."_  
  
They hang up, and Dawn goes back to reading her reports for the 57th time, looking for something she's missed. There has to be something they can do. Back in Sunnydale, things usually reversed themselves when you slew (slayed?) the bad guy. Or at least sometimes. (The zombies at Buffy's welcome home party disappeared the second Buffy slayed the head zombie. Dawn hid under Mom's bed. Mom never mentioned Pat again, as far as Dawn remembers.) How often did that happen? (The people who got mindsucked by Glory went back to normal. She thinks. That Buffy-less summer was always kind of hazy.) Three times out of five, maybe? She's not sure. She can't remember being more sure last week, so that's probably OK.  
  
They got the first solid clue just over two weeks ago. One of the junior Slayers (can't really call them that now, she supposes, but she's been doing it for so long she can't afford to change now) followed a rumour and crashed a group of supposed Kali worshippers, who turned out to be looking for something much older but had a very fuzzy idea of what. A few days of intense research later they had a point of origin: whatever it is is somewhere in Kenya, by all appearances something very old (as in pre-... anything, really) that's woken up, or possibly fallen asleep. Any search for a cure would have to start there. It's not much to go on, and it may just be a wild goose chase, but what else are they supposed to do?

Rome to Nairobi is a long drive, and only focusing on the job doesn't make it shorter. Every morning they pile into the cars, drive carefully, avoiding any large cities. Dawn reads her own notes from four days ago. _This is the same path the first humans to leave Africa walked. Slayers among them._ She pointed that out to Faith, who sneered that it was a stupid fucking move to begin with.

Night falls quickly. At the end of every day, the world shrinks around them until there's only what they see by the headlights and flashlights. They stop and set up camp, eat something that tastes like nothing, and go to bed.

***

Dawn wakes up, looks up at the tent above her ("Watson, you idiot, I deduce that someone's stolen our tent!" She remembers the punchline, not the rest of the joke. That's normal.) It's early morning, it's hot, insects and birds are just starting up, presumably sounding no different than they did millions of years ago and almost drowning out the chirp from her phone.

One, maybe two days of driving left, Dawn thinks. Someone is weeping in the next tent over, someone else trying to soothe her. What if whatever it is gets stronger the closer they get, what if it sees them coming? What if they haven't brought enough to take it down, or get it back up, or find the cure, or whatever it is?

Well, at least that would be something, she thinks as she laces up her boots and texts Faith back.


End file.
